


Enchanted

by akaparalian



Category: Marvel (Comics), Young Avengers
Genre: AU, Fluff, M/M, School Dance, no seriously fluffity fluff fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaparalian/pseuds/akaparalian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy wouldn’t be here, because Billy <i>hates</i> school dances, but his mom had chastised and nagged and chased him out the door with threats to call teachers to make sure he actually went, after giving him some psychologist-babble about how participating in social events, such as school dances, was crucial to emotional development in teenagers, but you know, it was fine, because he’d sit in whatever his new school’s version of the Nerd Corner was and he’d be okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enchanted

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: most of the writing of this fic occurred at like 3 AM when I was too freaked out to sleep because I’d recently watched like ⅔ of Marble Hornets straight through and I’m a horror wuss and _Slenderman is exceedingly creepy_. But that’s not the point right now. The point right now is fluff. Yay, fluff. Fluff is quite good. ...yeah, I’m losing coherency here. On to the fic!

He gets the feeling this really isn’t how Teddy Altman usually spends his school dances.  
  
Because, really, Teddy may be nice, and apparently almost as nerdy as Billy himself is (may wonders never cease)- or at least capable of having a relatively intense debate about the merits of Aquaman versus the Sub-Mariner- but from what he’s gathered from his first few weeks at this school, Teddy Altman is part of the group best describes as the jockaletes. Teddy is evidently one of the exceptions that proves the rule, the rule being that Teddy’s kind of people don’t really mingle with Billy’s kind of people- unless, of course, by ‘mingling’ you mean ‘beating on’- and, therefore, Teddy should not be mingling with Billy, but he is, and it’s kind of awesome.  
  
And the thing is, Billy wouldn’t even be here, because Billy  hates school dances, but his mom had chastised and nagged and chased him out the door with threats to call teachers to make sure he actually went, after giving him some psychologist-babble about how participating in social events, such as school dances, was crucial to emotional development in teenagers, but he’d figured, you know, it was fine, because he’d sit in whatever his new school’s version of the Nerd Corner was and he’d be okay. He just  really didn’t count on this tall, rather muscular, undeniably... hot is accurate, but handsome sounds a little less trashy, so handsome, guy, who’s apparently not a true jockalete, also being a resident of the Nerd Corner.  
  
Not that he’s complaining.  
  
“I don’t mind dances as an event or whatever,” Teddy’s explaining, and Billy may or may not have asked him what on Earth he was actually doing here in the Nerd Corner, also known as the Corner of Shame in some circles. “It’s just the actual, you know, dancing part. I’ve pretty much got two left feet.” He’s got this sheepish little smile and it shouldn’t actually be able to be that cute, but it is.   
  
“I’m sorta the opposite,” Billy says, really hoping he isn’t projecting his ‘wow you’re actually really attractive hi’ vibes too strongly, and knowing that that hope is probably futile. “I like to dance, if I’m alone or whatever, it’s just- people. And, well, here I don’t even know anyone, so it makes it worse.”  
  
“Hey, you know me,” Teddy says with a grin. “I’m someone. Well, I mean, not really, most of the someone-ing goes to the other guys, but, you know, I exist. More or less.”  
  
Billy raises an eyebrow. “You’re not really inspiring confidence, you know.”  
  
Teddy laughs, and it’s infectious and Billy can’t help laughing too, and then they’re both shuddering with laughter, leaning on each other, and it wasn’t even that funny but now that they’ve started laughing neither one can stop. Billy finds a thought drifting to the center of his mind even as he leans against Teddy’s shoulder, wracked with laughter: for not knowing any of the kids at this new school of his, the dance is going pretty well. And then another one follows it up: Teddy is seriously attractive, and right now he can’t even bring himself to care that he’s probably straight, because after all, Billy himself is definitely  not straight and he’s allowed to at least appreciate an attractive guy every once in a while, especially if said attractive guy has so far proven himself to be spectacularly un-jerkish.  
  
“So,” Billy sort of wheezes as they both come down from their laughing fits a little. “I take it you don’t usually spend your dances laughing on the ground with idiots like me?”  
  
Teddy shrugs a bit and reaches up to run a hand through his hair, which has every appearance of being either a) actual bedhead or b) painstakingly achieved fake-bedhead (since Teddy doesn’t seem to be either a douche or exceedingly fashion-forward, Billy’s going with door number one until proven otherwise). “I guess not, but I’m enjoying it.” He smiles a tiny little smile, and oops, Billy’s pretty sure it’s actually not healthy for his heart to skip like that. “I mean, if you’re an idiot, then smart people must be really frickin’ boring, you know?”  
  
Billy laughs again, but it’s quieter this time, more nervous. He glances sideways at Teddy, looks away, sneaks another peek. And he’s not quite sure what possesses him, but  something  does, and as it sort of tingles at the tips of his fingers he knows he can’t really leave that at that and if he’s going to do something, well, now might be a good time. He’s pretty evenly split, of course, between this weird tingly thing that tells him that hey, it might be okay to say something, and the sheer terror that’s the reason he never has. Then again, usually the terror-to-tingles ratio is closer to a ninety to ten split, so it might be worth a shot.  
  
He clears his throat a bit and twiddles his thumbs. “So, uh, I know you said you were one of those guys with two left feet, but maybe...?” He sort of trails off and gestures vaguely towards the other people here with them in this gymnasium, the roiling, gyrating mass of bodies cloaked in shiny fabrics that he’d been ignoring more or less completely in favor of Teddy ever since the blond had, for whatever reason (and he was not in any way looking the proverbial equine in the mouth), come to sit next to him. “I mean, if you wanted... we could...” And now he does a little dance in place and thinks to himself,  oh God, Kaplan, you’re only making this worse. Stop. Just stop.   
  
Teddy doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and Billy’s just about to hastily attempt to cover everything he just said with a blanket marked “JUST KIDDING” in bright red letters, but then Teddy sort of looks him square in the eye and tilts his head a little and says, “Billy Kaplan, did you just ask me to dance?” and when Billy freezes for an instant and nods hesitantly a smile spreads across his face, slow and nervous but real.  
  
“Well, if you promise not to laugh at me  too hard,” he says, moving to get up. Billy does laugh at that, just a little, breathless and flushing and feeling like this might be an out-of-body experience or something because he can’t really feel his fingers anymore.  
  
They stand up and just sort of stare at each other for a second, and Billy belatedly realizes that the old song is dying, the last chord fading into the chatter of the crowd, and he feels a little rock burn a pit in his stomach as the opening notes of freaking  Carly Rae Jepsen  replace the old song almost immediately, and he and Teddy groan in unison and then laugh nervously at each other, shuffling awkwardly. Billy takes a little bit of initiative and sort of- bops his head a little bit to the beat, and because he’s him he can’t really stop himself from moving once he’s started- even if he is dancing to Call Me Maybe in a high school gym amidst a crowd of hundreds of other sweaty, hormonal human beings- and before he even really knows what he’s shimmying a little and dancing along to the lyrics because oh shit, he knows all the words, how does he know all the words to this song and  how did he not know he knew all the words to this song . He must have said at least part of that last bit out loud, because Teddy laughs and a bit of tension trickles down from his shoulders and then he’s moving, too.  
  
Billy’s really not sure what’s happening anymore, except that he’s now even closer to Teddy and Teddy’s earrings are catching the light of the disco ball (why does their school have a disco ball, seriously) in a really distracting way, and Teddy was lying at least a little bit because, in Billy’s expert opinion, while he may not be the world’s greatest dancer, he manages to be pretty graceful, and that’s more than most people in his category muscle mass-wise can say. Oh, and also Billy’s mouthing the words now, and he manages to sort of look into Teddy’s eyes when the chorus rolls around, and oops, in case Teddy just has really whacked-out gaydar and/or was operating under a ‘no homo until proven flaming’ mentality, he’s pretty sure that if his expression at all matches his thoughts he just painted “wow these lyrics are surprisingly fitting, also I would like to have your manbabies if that’s quite all right” all over his dumb face.  
  
...well, Teddy hasn’t run of screaming, so that’s something.  
  
Billy feels that losing track of time is pretty forgivable in this case, and when the song fades out he’s almost caught off-guard by it, breathing a little harder than he means to be and hoping beyond all hope that Teddy’s not about to back away quickly and/or deck him, and he completely freezes when the next song cues up and it’s- oh God  no slow songs are  bad for his health, why is the DJ doing this to him.   
  
Billy looks at Teddy. Teddy looks at Billy. Christina Perri croons in the background.  
  
Shuffling his feet and looking away seems like more or less the only reasonable plan of action, so Billy does. But he can’t help glancing up, just briefly, and when he does his heart does that skipping thing that would probably make his dad bust a nervous cardiologist expression because Teddy’s sort of blushing and ruffling his hair again and biting his lip, but he doesn’t look mad or grossed out or whatever- really, if Billy were feeling confident, he’d almost say Teddy looked  hopeful.  
  
And Billy isn’t usually a beacon of self-confidence, but all the same...  
  
“So. Um. Did you want to,” he waves his hands in the air again, trying to make mouthwords happen and failing at least a little in that regard, “keep dancing?”   
  
This time, when he looks more directly at Teddy, Teddy’s smiling again, that small, slow grin.   
  
“Yeah. Uh,” he says, and reaches for Billy a bit, and there’s this brief, awkward fumble where they try to work out what limbs go where and how close is acceptable versus awkwardly personal bubble-bursting, but they get themselves sorted by the time the second verse is starting and maybe they’re just sort of awkwardly swaying and maybe Billy can already hear the whispers from some assholes of to the side who apparently care enough to watch them rather than dancing with someone themselves, but really, Billy could not give less of a shit, because holy heart failure, Batman,  he’s dancing with Teddy Altman.  Legitimately dancing. Legitimately  slowdancing. It may be a cliche, but he’s pretty sure the entire room could go up in flames (or even be held hostage by swashbuckling pteranodons in sundresses, which would be infinitely more interesting) and he’d be entirely unaware.  
  
What he does suddenly become aware of, though, is the fact that he’s been sort of staring at Teddy- more accurately, at Teddy’s eyes, because Billy has a thing for nice eyes, and Teddy has  really nice eyes \- but Teddy doesn’t really seem bothered by it, because he’s smiling again and his hand’s tightened a bit on Billy’s waist, and his other squeezes Billy’s hand lightly, almost reassuringly. Billy takes a deep breath and lets it out in a  whoosh , and apparently Teddy is fluent in nonverbal Billy Kaplan communication already (Billy is seriously in love at this point, because it even took his  mom several years to figure that out, and most of the people he knows still don’t get it) because his grin widens and he says, “I know, right?”  
  
Billy laughs a bit, shifts his hand on Teddy’s shoulder a little. “Yeah. Well. I didn’t really...” He trails off and shrugs, back to nonverbal communication again, a half-smile twisting his lips. “Not that I’m not super, uh, that is, you seem great. Just. We’ve never really talked, and then we were, and now we’re dancing and like I said, you’re great and um.” He hesitates and Teddy grimaces a little.  
  
“I really should have talked to you before now,” he says, and Billy blinks, because that’s not really the kind of thing people usually say to him. “I mean, I’ve seen you around, and I thought- you looked pretty cool, you know?” No, Billy doesn’t know. But he will listen to just about anything Teddy says at this point, even if it’s stuff about him being  cool. “But I had some stuff going on with this- friend... ex-friend, but whatever, and then I saw you tonight and,” and now it’s Teddy’s term to be nonverbal and use a shrug to fill a hole in his words.   
  
“I,” Billy says, and then he hesitates, and then he laughs a bit again, and it sort of bubbles out of him in the same way it did before and he can’t  stop , and he has to lean his head against Teddy for a bit until he can get ahold of himself, and it’s only when he’s stopped giggling like a madman that he realizes his face and Teddy’s face are rather very close.  
  
They both freeze, even their awkward sway-dance holding in place. Billy notes for about the ninetieth or ninety-first time that Teddy has really nice eyes, and that his really nice eyes are really  blue . Teddy breathes out and Billy can  feel it, ghosting across his face and making gooseflesh pop up on the back of his neck, and they’re leaning in in fractions-  
  
And then a rather distinctive dubstep  wubwubwub bursts out over the end of the nice, slow song they’d been dancing to and a massive cheer goes up from a very vocal minority amongst the crowd. The dropping of the bass makes them both jump, and their lips brush for just a split second before they’re leaning away, startled by the noise and by each other and by everything that’s ever happened in the history of ever (although Billy thinks that last one might only apply to him).   
  
“Well,” Teddy says, moving his hands and stepping out of slow-dance position. He looks a bit lost, and Billy definitely knows how that feels right about now, and then he groans “Man, dubstep ruins  everything,” and Billy’s laughing again because he’s an idiot and also Teddy is legitimately funny. But mostly because he’s an idiot. He does think this is the most he’s ever laughed at a school function, though, so that can only be a plus.  
  
They migrate back to their Nerd Corner, which they’d traveled a bit away from while dancing, and instead of sitting Billy leans against the wall and Teddy follows suit. He feels kind of silly, leaning in like this, each of them with one shoulder to the wall, facing each other, but he also just feels kind of silly in general because that tingling in his fingers has not gone away and there’ve been definite butterflies having a jamboree in his stomach all night, too. But Teddy doesn’t seem to find it overly strange, because he’s smiling again- Billy really likes Teddy’s smile, and he really likes how  much Teddy smiles, and Billy basically finds himself summing up his thoughts by saying he  really likes Teddy.   
  
“So,” Teddy says, crossing his arms.  
  
“So,” Billy agrees. “You totally lied, by the way. ‘Two left feet’ isn’t how I’d describe your dancing at all.”  
  
Teddy gives kind of an aw-shucks grin and shrugs. “I guess I’m not usually enjoying the company of my dance partners that much,” he counters, and it’s Billy’s turn to smile and blush and shuffle his feet.   
  
“I’m really,” he says after a moment, hesitating and trying to figure out how to avoid looking any more socially awkward than he has to just by merit of who he is. “I’m really glad that you, um, came to talk to me. I mean, I...” he trails off into non-verbal communication once more, looking up and Teddy and smiling.  
  
Teddy grins back. “Yeah. Me, too.” And then he leans down a bit and tilts his head a little, preparatory and questioning at the same time, and Billy thinks,  what the hell, it’s dark and also Teddy, and leans up, and then- well. It’s a real kiss this time, not an accidental barely-there brush, and Teddy’s lips are warm and just the teeniest bit chapped but most importantly they are pressed to Billy’s because  he, Billy Kaplan, is being kissed, at a school dance, by Teddy Altman, who happens to have a really nice everything.  
  
They pull apart both smiling, and Billy takes the time out from internally flipping his shit to think that worse things have definitely happened at school events.  


End file.
